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A history of what it meant to be a man, and a citizen of an emerging nation throughout the nineteenth century. This book not only relates how Belgians were taught how to move and fight, but also how they spoke and sang to express masculinity and patriotism.

Masculinity and Nationhood, 1830-1910 looks at 'masculine' patriotic behaviour in schools, army and parliament in nineteenth century Belgium. Schoolboys singing on excursion, soldiers acting out a shot wound on the maneuvering field and politicians raising their voices against effeminacy: all articulated their manly love of the nation in their own way. In recent years, much has been written about masculinity and citizenship in modern Europe. However, little is yet available about the learning process in which children and young men engaged in order to look, walk and talk like mature men and patriots. Belgium, at the crossroads between French, British and German notions of gender and citizenship, proves to be an ideal case-study to show not only how men were taught to move and fight, but also how they spoke and sang to express modern masculinity and patriotism.

« Est-ce une maladie ou une habitude ? » Tout au long du XIX e siècle, les savoirs et les traitements relatifs au bégaiement ont évolué considérablement. Plusieurs disciplines en plein essor revendiquaient un savoir d'autorité sur le sujet : phoniatres, laryngologues, élocutionnistes et psychanalystes se présentaient tous de diverses manières comme des « experts » de la question. Parallèlement, alors que les explications du phénomène du bégaiement évoluaient, l'identité du bègue s'est trouvée constamment ré-inventée. Cet article montre comment l'évolution des explications et des traitements du bégaiement au fil du XIX e siècle (de la représentation « mécanique » d'une langue bègue jusqu'aux théories neurologiques sur le cerveau bègue à la fin du siècle, en passant par l'idée plus holistique d'un corps bègue) a finalement débouché sur la construction d'une figure de bègue expert du bégaiement. Dorénavant plus considéré comme la victime d'un trouble nerveux, le « bègue » du tournant du siècle était imaginé comme le spécialiste expérimenté d'un champ en cours d'institutionnalisation.

This article traces the evolution of different discourses of masculinity in the nineteenth century Belgian army. It highlights specifically the way in which officers and men used concepts such as fatherliness, brotherhood, youthfulness, filial duty and other kinship metaphors to express their gendered identities and their mutual relationships within an all-male community. Despite their continued reliance on these metaphors, the ways in which the language of age and kinship was deployed in the army changed throughout the century, and most notably around 1880. As the army became 'modern', its soldiers became brothers-in-arms rather than obedient sons and its officers became virile family men rather than wise paternal greybeards. Approaching the twentieth century, when comradeship between young men would play a key-role in the self-representation of the army, youth gained importance in military structures and the muscular and sexual vigour of the young male body became central to definitions of masculinity.

This article traces the evolution of different discourses of masculinity in the nineteenth century Belgian army. It highlights specifically the way in which officers and men used concepts such as fatherliness, brotherhood, youthfulness, filial duty and other kinship metaphors to express their gendered identities and their mutual relationships within an all-male community. Despite their continued reliance on these metaphors, the ways in which the language of age and kinship was deployed in the army changed throughout the century, and most notably around 1880. As the army became 'modern', its soldiers became brothers-in-arms rather than obedient sons and its officers became virile family men rather than wise paternal greybeards. Approaching the twentieth century, when comradeship between young men would play a key-role in the self-representation of the army, youth gained importance in military structures and the muscular and sexual vigour of the young male body became central to definitions of masculinity. This article is part of the special issue 'Low Countries Histories of Masculinity'.

Histories of voice are often written as accounts of greatness: great statesmen, grands discours, famous singers. But for most, life consists of private conversations, intimate whispers, hot gossip or ceaseless quarrels. The volume suggests an extended practice of eavesdropping: it listens in on more mundane aspects of vocality - who speaks, whose voices resound in history - while questioning the modern equation between speech and representation.